POTOSI, Mo. — One piece of a paper took center stage this week in the high-profile case accusing a Missouri sheriff and two deputies of orchestrating a kidnapping scheme for a wealthy resident determined to get custody of his child.
Washington County prosecutors were tasked with proving to a judge they had enough evidence against the father, Donald “Rick†Gaston, to go to trial. In a 10-hour hearing, they argued that, at Gaston’s direction, Iron County Sheriff Jeffrey Burkett and two deputies went to great lengths to find and turn over Gaston’s 5-year-old daughter, amounting to stalking, victim tampering and “criminal street gang activity.â€
But Gaston’s attorney, Scott Rosenblum, lifted a piece of paper up to the judge. It was, he argued a valid child custody agreement that showed Gaston had a legal right to care for the 5-year-old child and good reason to enlist law enforcement in the effort.
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“All of this other stuff is nonsense,†Rosenblum told the judge.
Rosenblum described Gaston as a concerned father looking for his child. Then the prominent big-city attorney poked holes in witness after witness at the Wednesday hearing.
Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Jones argued the custody agreement didn’t justify Gaston and the sheriff “hunting down†his ex-girlfriend and child. They went to “highly unusual†lengths for law enforcement to intercede in a custody dispute including tracking the mother’s location, investigating her for high-level felonies, attempting to question her teen daughter and putting out widespread calls for her arrest, Jones said.
Witnesses called by Jones Wednesday included the child’s mother, the sitting Washington County sheriff, two judges and the elected prosecutor of Iron County. The hours of evidence previewed a case that has already effectively removed the Iron County sheriff and captured the attention of Missouri’s lead belt for months.
“That this is somehow a legitimate law enforcement action is insane,†Jones argued. “This is conspiratorial behavior. This is organized crime.â€
The trial took place here in Potosi because prosecutors argued some of the alleged crimes happened in Washington County. A St. Francois County judge presided.
The evidence
The series of events started when Adrienne Henry poured a $50 bottle of whiskey down the drain the night of Feb. 8.
Henry, 33, testified she started dating Gaston, 63, when she was 20. The two were in an on-and-off romantic relationship for more than a decade. They never married, but had a daughter who’s now 5 years old. Henry also has a 16-year-old daughter who is not Gaston’s biological child.
A year prior, Henry and Gaston were off. In May 2022, they went to court to reach a temporary custody agreement for their daughter. Gaston would get custody every other weekend and some Wednesdays, but they only abided by the agreement for a month or two before they decided to reconcile, Henry testified.
She moved back in with Gaston on his sprawling horse ranch in rural Iron County.
But, Henry testified, things turned bad again that night in February. Gaston accused her of drinking too much. She denied it and poured the whiskey down the drain.
Her 16-year-old daughter captured an audio recording of the fight played in court. Henry yells for Gaston to get away from her. The 16-year-old threatens to call 911. The recording ends with Gaston yelling “you just punched me in the face!â€
Henry and her teen daughter both testified Wednesday that Gaston put his hand around Henry’s throat and threw her to the ground. Henry admitted that at some point during the fight, she threw a phone that grazed their 5-year-old daughter’s hand, causing a scratch.
Gaston and the 16-year-old both called 911.
“You can barely see it, Dad!†the child says of her injury as Iron County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, a video played Wednesday showed.
The deputies escorted Henry and her daughters off the property.
A couple of days later, on Feb. 10, a deputy visited Henry and told her Gaston wanted to take their daughter for the weekend. According to the custody agreement they reached before they reconciled, it was his turn to have the child, the deputy said.
Henry testified that she didn’t turn her daughter over, but met with her lawyer that afternoon. She testified the lawyer told her to wait until a judge could hear the case that Monday.
“She told me to have a relaxing weekend,†Henry testified.
Henry took her daughters out of Iron County that evening to stay with her cousin and her cousin’s husband, Maj. Andy Sides of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. She opened an app that tracked Gaston’s car and soon realized he was following her — visiting each stop she had made on her way to her cousin’s house.
“I felt hunted,†Henry said. “I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere.â€
Gaston and Iron County deputies called to request wellness checks at the home of Henry’s cousin. A Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy and an investigator with the Department of Social Services both responded to reports that a child had been injured and was in danger but found no cause to take the girl, according to testimony Wednesday.
Gaston showed up at the house later that night angrily demanding his child, but a Jefferson County sheriff’s sergeant told him to leave.
‘She’s going to be sitting in my jail’
Meanwhile, Iron County Sheriff Burkett and deputies pulled the mother’s plates, obtained cellphone location data from her phone and put out a “stop and hold†alert to other law enforcement instructing them to arrest her. They also visited the home of Henry’s parents in Madison County.
Iron County Prosecuting Attorney Brian Parker testified Wednesday that he got messages from Iron County Deputy Matthew Cozad the evening of Feb. 10 requesting that Henry be charged with felony child endangerment and first-degree assault, which requires proof of an attempt to kill or cause great bodily injury.
Parker said they provided no evidence besides descriptions of a child’s swollen thumb and reports of scratches on Gaston.
“A slap in the face for first-degree assault seems like a stretch,†Parker said.
Parker told the deputy they would need more evidence. They provided him with video capturing some of the fight, he said.
“If there was a primary aggressor, it was Mr. Gaston,†Parker testified.
Parker recused himself from the case after Iron County Deputy Chase Bresnahan said Parker must be sleeping with the mother, Henry, because of his handling of the case, which was not true, Parker testified. He transferred the case to a Crawford County prosecutor who also refused to file charges.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen testified that he kicked off the criminal investigation into Burkett and the deputies when he reported them to the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Jacobsen said he got a call from Sides, the Jefferson County Sherriff’s Office commander related to Henry’s cousin. Sides said he believed an Iron County deputy had misused a law enforcement database, the Missouri Uniform Law Enforcement System (MULES) to illegally pull information about his wife and address.
Jacobsen testified he’d also gotten a call around the same time from an Iron County deputy asking his department to investigate a vehicle crash that Henry had gotten into in Washington County about two months prior. Jacobsen testified it wasn’t typical to investigate a crash where no police were called so long after the fact. He refused. The deputy said that their department would come and investigate it themselves, Jacobsen testified.
The patrol investigation found more than 50 recordings of calls between Sheriff Burkett, his deputies and dispatchers as they attempted to find Henry. Texts between the deputies accused in the scheme, Cozad and Bresnahan, show they were frustrated at what they were being asked to do — which one said was just so Burkett could “kiss Gaston’s (expletive) like he’s gold,†according to evidence introduced Wednesday.
During the search for Henry, a dispatcher told Burkett that the mother’s cellphone activity showed she was leaving the county.
“I hope like hell she is,†he replied. “Because when I catch her she’s going to be sitting in my jail.â€
One charge tossed, two go forward
Rosenblum, Gaston’s defense attorney, argued Wednesday that the deputies were just doing their job to investigate reports from Gaston of a domestic assault. They also planned to carry out language in the custody agreement stating it “shall†be enforced by law enforcement, except in rare circumstances.
“Apparently this prosecutor tried to throw everything at the wall to see what was going to stick,†Rosenblum argued.
He argued Gaston wasn’t directly involved in many aspects of the investigation and called claims of a conspiracy far-fetched.
Jones, the Washington County prosecutor, argued the investigation violated Henry’s rights and amounted to a conspiracy to commit second-degree kidnapping, among other crimes. He told the judge the charge of criminal street gang activity is rarely used in Missouri, but said it doesn’t require that he show Gaston was involved in every step of the plan.
“It seems to me Rick Gaston’s say-so was pulling an awful amount of weight,†he said.
Moreover, he said, it wasn’t clear at the time that the custody agreement was valid — it was poorly written and included contradictions.
St. Francois County Associate Circuit Court Judge Patrick King ultimately allowed two of three felonies to go forward in the case.
He threw out one count of witness tampering, but determined there was enough probable cause for counts of stalking and participating in criminal street gang activity.
Gaston also faces multiple pending misdemeanors in the case.
Burkett and the two deputies, Cozad and Bresnahan, are all facing charges in connection to the scheme.
A preliminary hearing in those cases is set for Dec. 15 in St. Francois County.